The next speech by Mayor Julián Castro is billed as the “The Future of Downtown,” a fitting topic for a departing mayor who came to office in 2009 declaring the next 10 years as the “Decade of Downtown.”

Mayor Julián Castro, flanked by a majority of City Council at a hastily called Thursday afternoon press conference at City Hall, announced a proposed downtown real estate megadeal put forward by Weston Urban and Frost Bank that would give the city’s skyline its first new Class A tower in more than 25 years and generate a breathtaking wave of downtown development north of Main Plaza.

City Council threw its unified support Thursday behind a comprehensive program to address the urban core’s hundreds of vacant buildings that range from historic downtown landmarks to abandoned inner-city homes.

Donovan Rypkema, the intellectual force and principal behind Washington D.C.-based PlaceEconomics, a real estate and economic development consulting firm, couldn’t be coming to downtown San Antonio at a better time.